Pope Francis will issue a decree authorizing the use of indigenous languages in mass celebrations when he travels to Mexico next week, one of the symbolic gestures he will make in defence of Indian rights in the country.

These days Canadaís aboriginal groups use public pressure, backed by legal action, to protect their lands against exploitation by outsiders. This month the government of British Columbia reached agreement with forest companies, environmental groups and 26 First Nations communities to protect from logging.

I first heard about Luke Weiss from an elder of the Waorani, a tribe scattered along the Amazon tributaries of northeastern Ecuador. He spoke of a white man living with the Secoya, a small tribe settled on a nearby river, but one who had ceased to be a white man. This man had become Secoya.

Bolivia is preparing to build an International Institute of the Quechua Nation to study indigenous Quechua science, culture and language, according to an announcement in December by the Quechua Institute of Language and Culture and the Provincial Government of Cochabamba.